Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis

CHAPTER SIX Ultimate Attainment in L2 Pronunciation:
The Case of Very Advanced Late L2 Learners

Theo Bongaerts University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

It is now more than three decades ago that Lenneberg ( 1967) advanced
the hypothesis that there is a critical period, roughly between age 2
and puberty, for the acquisition of language. He argued that, due to a
loss of neural plasticity, languages could no longer be completely
successfully acquired after the close of that period. Whereas Lenneberg's claims were not restricted to the acquisition of accent, Scovel ( 1969, 1988) singled out pronunciation as the one area of language
performance that was subject to the constraints of a critical period. His
arguments were that pronunciation is "the only aspect of language that
has a neuromuscular basis," requires "neuromotor involvement," and has
a "physical reality" ( Scovel 1988, p. 101). He predicted that learners
who start to learn a second language (L2) later than around age 12 will
never be able "to pass themselves off as native speakers" and will "end
up easily identified as nonnative speakers of that language" (p. 185).
Clearly, such arguments and predictions hinge on the assumption that
basic neurologically based abilities are irreversibly lost around the
onset of puberty. 1

It should be noted, however, that Scovel ( 1988) allowed for the possibility
that there may be some "superexceptional" L2 learners, about 1 out of 1,000 in any
population of adult learners, who are not bound by the biological constraints of
the critical period. Indeed, a number of studies published between 1988 and 1995

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